Debates of Jan. 31st, 2007

Motions in amendment

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Kitchener Centre.

Let me take a step back and look at Canada's responsibility internationally and the way that it has taken on that responsibility to serve as an advisor and monitor of elections over the last 40 or 50 years in newly democratizing countries around the world or countries coming out of conflict.

In the last two years alone a Canadian team of monitors have been in the Ukraine, the Palestinian Authority and Afghanistan. Electoral officials from Canada were training Iraqi electoral officials in Jordan and right now there is a team of Canadian election monitors, Canada Corps members, in Bangladesh, although unfortunately, because of continuing disputes in that area, its election is being delayed.

I was an election monitor in Nicaragua during the Contra civil war when it was a very dangerous thing for people to expose themselves by voting. I was in the mountains near the Honduras-Nicaraguan border area where the Contra were most effective. People were coming to school--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I apologize to the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra but I want to clarify something. He indicated that he would be splitting his time with the member for Kitchener Centre. We are at report stage and, as such, he has a 10 minute slot with 5 minutes for questions and comments. Is he seeking unanimous consent of the House to allow him to split his time--

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

No, that is fine.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

--or will he take up the full 10 minutes?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the standard we use in advising other countries in their electoral commissions and their electoral processes and in monitoring those elections is free and fair. Were the elections free and fair? When we say free, we are talking about the right of every adult person to vote, which is a charter right in Canada. The fair side is equally important to the equation of having an election. Fairness means the integrity of the process.

We as legislators have a duty to ensure that there is integrity in the voter process, so that it will be fairly applied and available to Canadians. Hon. members opposite have spoken of marginalized communities. Of course that means they must be given every possible opportunity within the integrity of the system to vote. That is fairness. It is also fairness to ensure that fraud cannot be perpetrated. I suggest that is what this bill is intended to do.

We have had a long series of discussions and processes to get to this point, including the Chief Electoral Officer's report after the January 2006 election to the committee, our committee's report to the House, and the response of the government in Bill C-31.

The bill makes a number of improvements. It improves access for the disabled. There are more convenient locations for advanced polls. There is access for candidates as well as election officials to gated communities. The processes of the electoral office also allow candidate access to malls or privately owned public spaces where often candidates are not allowed to communicate with the public. A former chief electoral officer made it very clear that there will also be an opportunity for electoral officials to go to perhaps seniors houses and shelters, places where people may not be able to get to the polls. I would suggest that we as a committee and we as legislators be immensely vigilant going forward to ensure that marginalized groups are not left out.

We on this side of the House had real concerns with the electoral officials and other witnesses who came before us. We implored the Chief Electoral Officer to be more vigilant and more targeted in areas of low enumeration or voter turnout. That office has taken on that responsibility.

We also asked that in areas, whether it is an intercity or a remote community, an aboriginal community or otherwise, where people in the past have shown an inability to exercise their franchise, that more vigilant and more targeted enumeration takes place.

With the special concern that has been raised with respect to aboriginal communities, remote communities in particular, we put to the Chief Electoral Officer that an acceptable form of government picture identification could be an aboriginal status card, if it had an address on it. If the address is not on it, then there could be a letter from the band office or something else indicating the address of the person together with the card in order to satisfy the requirements.

While we must be extremely vigilant that marginalized groups are not left out of the process, we must also be vigilant and ensure that there is no opportunity for voter fraud, not by those people, but by others who may for unscrupulous reasons, and with many more resources, try to defeat the process and the fairness of the process.

It is the fairness of the process and the belief that Canadians have that it is a fair and honest system that is really one of the major concerns in this country. I would suggest that nothing will cause voter participation to decline faster than if the general public loses its faith in the fairness of the process.

That may sound far-fetched, but we all know what happened in 2000 in Florida with the U.S. presidential election and how flawed that process was even though it was presenting a very elaborate electoral system.

We do need to be vigilant going forward to ensure people are not left out but we also need to take this as a first step in a much broader electoral reform process. In the spring of 2004, the Law Commission of Canada published a paper. It is an independent commission which, I would remind the government, that it has just starved of all of its budget from its actions last fall. However, the Law Commission came up with a paper on electoral reform that is probably based on greater consultation and greater research than any other electoral reform suggestion in the Commonwealth and there was an obligation on our previous government and on the current government for the Minister of Justice to answer that Law Commission report.

The process had begun. Electoral reform, with the agreement of the NDP, was put in the Speech from the Throne of the previous Liberal government. A committee had plans to look into electoral reform but that, for some reason, has now been stopped. I would put it to all members of the House and certainly to the government and the Minister of Justice that there is a responsibility to take up that public review.

I heard last week that the government will be hiring a polling company and a think tank to consult in a few communities across the country. I would ask the Prime Minister and the Attorney General of Canada whether they have ever read that Law Commission report and, if they have, why they think they need an alternative process at this stage and start all over again.

We should have Parliament and the House of Commons in a special committee looking at real electoral reform and then we need a proper response from the government to the Law Commission's report. If we are to have a citizen's assembly, which we had in British Columbia and which is being advanced in Ontario, we need to ensure that the objective is to have an open and comprehensive process and not some slapdash polling process.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate hearing what the member for Vancouver Quadra has to say when he says that the most important principle and the most important issue is to have fairness in our electoral system. I would certainly agree with that.

However, I am quite surprised and somewhat disappointed that the member did not support amendments in committee to ensure the bill would be fair to the most vulnerable in our society and the people who have the most difficulty in terms of having ID. I really do not understand why he and his party are not supporting amendments that would make it clear that there are fair provisions to ensure that disenfranchised people will be able to vote.

The bill, without these amendments and without the changes we tried to make at committee, will lead to a consequence that many people will not be able to vote. I appreciate the member's comments about a citizen's assembly and bigger democratic electoral reform. This party has always put forward and championed the idea of proportional representation which, unfortunately, the Liberals decided to do nothing about.

However, here we have something very specific. We are talking about individual voter's rights. I would like the member to address why he did not support these amendments to at least ensure that people, for example in the downtown east side, would be able to vote without having to go through an incredible process that I do not think will work in terms of having only one person vouching for a person.

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of balance. If we are to have an electoral system with integrity, it needs to have sufficient rigour to give confidence to the general public that fraud cannot be perpetrated.

Having worked in the downtown Vancouver east side as a legal aid lawyer, I know the problems well and I know the despair in which many people live. I think we need to be vigilant, and I know the member for Vancouver East will be, in ensuring that electoral officials do more targeted enumeration in shelters, in single room occupancy hotels and in areas where people, who might otherwise not be able to avail themselves of being registered, get registered. We also need to have special provisions to go into shelters at election time to perhaps make the voting process taken to people in an easier way.

However, the concerns that were raised about sequential and multiple vouching I take as a warning for us to be more vigilant. If that proves to be true, we need to continue being careful that it does not exclude people, but if we find it does, then this is a work in progress and--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is on the very same line of thought that the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra was developing.

The member and I were both in the committee when a provision was put into the proposed text of the bill. It was an attempt to deal with the construction of the voters list and the way in which people get left off the voters list. The provision recognized that homeless people actually do have a roof over their heads at certain times when they are at a homeless shelter and that people at homeless shelters are capable of vouching for other individuals. I specifically asked the Chief Electoral Officer for information that would allow us to go and put this provision into the bill.

I want to read this for the member for Vancouver Quadra and ask him if he thinks this deals with the kind of issue he was talking about.

It says that the following people can vouch for a person to get him or her onto the list:

--the elector, or another elector who lives at the same residence as the elector, at their residence and in the presence of the revising agents completes the prescribed registration form and takes the prescribed oath.

Does the member believe that this largely deals with the problem of homeless people not getting on the list that the member for Vancouver East was raising?

[Stephen Owen, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was part of our discussion in the committee. I think we will need to be very careful to ensure that people who want to vote are not left out and we need to ensure this sort of process works. It is certainly what we had in mind when we were given assurances by the Chief Electoral Officer that electoral officials could actually go into shelters to seek that kind of vouching.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to discuss Bill C-31 at the report stage.

Before stating our position on the motions in amendment, I would like to provide an overview of Bill C-31 and the work that has been done.

The purpose of this bill is to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for fraud or error. As a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I participated in the work leading up to the introduction of this bill in the House of Commons, so I can say that a lot of work went into it.

The committee includes representatives of each political party, all of whom cooperated effectively, thus enabling us to achieve our goal of improving the electoral process and strengthening the public's faith in it.

This bill will reduce the opportunity for fraud or error and will improve the accuracy of the list of electors. It will also make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote and will improve communication among election officials, candidates, political parties and voters.

I would suggest that the Conservative government approach other files with the same attitude and the same level of respect for other parties' ideas. The Conservatives' ideological agenda did not dominate our work, which probably explains why we were able to cooperate so well.

I would like to discuss in detail some of the provisions designed to reduce the opportunity for electoral fraud and error.

Electors must now present government-issued photo identification showing their name and address. In Quebec, a driver's licence is an excellent example of acceptable identification.

An elector who cannot produce such identification must present two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing both name and address.

Potential electors who cannot produce two acceptable pieces of identification may swear under oath that they are who they say they are. They must also be vouched for by another qualified elector.

The bill also provides that in case of reasonable doubt concerning whether a person qualifies as an elector—for example, if the person's age or citizenship are in doubt—that person must sign an affidavit. Only citizens over age 18 qualify to vote; currently, no proof of age is required, not even if there is reasonable doubt that the person qualifies.

We think that such a simple and clearly defined procedure will improve the electoral process by preventing more fraud.

The elector's date of birth will be added to the list of electors. This will help better identify the person wishing to exercise their right to vote.

In Quebec, the lists of electors include date of birth. This system works and fosters the objectives we want to achieve with this bill.

The bill also limits vouching so that an elector may vouch for only one person. This measure will help prevent a practice referred to as “serial vouching”, which could result in fraud.

What is serial vouching? Serial vouching is when an individual who was not originally registered to vote is vouched for by someone—whose name is on the list of electors—in order to be added to the voters’ list, and then vouches for someone else who was not registered, and so on.

The bill also contains another change that the Bloc Québécois has been calling for for a very long time and that is assigning a unique identification number to every elector. This unique identifier will be included on the list of electors and will improve the quality of the lists by ensuring that duplications are eliminated.

It is important to point out that this unique identifier will be randomly generated and assigned by the Chief Electoral Officer.

Bill C-31 also proposes measures to facilitate the right to vote. The time limit within which an elector with physical limitations can request a transfer certificate to vote at a polling station with level access has been removed. There will no longer be a deadline for disabled electors to apply for a transfer. I want to emphasize that this amendment does not give licence to avoid making polling stations accessible.

Bill C-31 permits an advance polling station to serve a single polling division rather than two or more polling divisions, in order to improve accessibility to advance polling stations for voters, particularly in remote regions.

It can be difficult for voters in these regions to get to advance polling stations. Year after year, a growing number of people choose to go to an advance poll to exercise their right to vote. It is therefore necessary to enhance accessibility.

The bill also seeks to improve communications between election officials, candidates, political parties and voters. It gives candidates a right of access to common areas of public places for election campaign purposes.

It is important to be able to meet people where they are. An election campaign is a unique opportunity to call attention to ideas and to talk about our record as members of Parliament. We must promote this, while also respecting the public.

Bill C-31 also improves access for parties and candidates to up-to-date lists of electors, which they can use to communicate with voters and encourage them to vote. In order to do so, it is important that they have access to accurate and up-to-date lists.

Various motions were presented to amend this bill. The Bloc Québécois reviewed all them and has taken a stand.

The Bloc Québécois opposes Motion No. 1, because it would imply not indicating the date of birth on voters lists, thus reducing the chances of properly identifying a potential voter.

The Bloc Québécois is also opposed to Motion No. 2, because it increases the risks of electoral fraud by opposing the simple and clearly established procedure of identifying potential voters by requiring appropriate pieces of identification and having them take an oath.

In conclusion, I want to mention the successful cooperation that led to this bill. I hope the Conservative government will follow this example in the future.

The Bloc Québécois supports this legislation. However, we oppose the motions presented at report stage.

My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I are proud to have proposed some elements of the Quebec electoral system to help the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in its work. The Quebec electoral system has proven its effectiveness. The elements found in Bill C-31 that are patterned on the Quebec model will help improve the federal electoral system.

The objective of this bill is to improve the integrity of the electoral process. I believe that, in this sense, the bill is a step in the right direction.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been told that the Bloc has a lot of concerns about voter fraud in Quebec, so the Bloc members may have reasons for supporting this bill, but it almost seems that there is a theoretical debate going on and that the real application and implications of this bill are not being felt or heard by members.

I want to ask the member why she would not be concerned about the reality. I think it has been very clearly documented that if this bill goes through as is, there are people who will lose the right to vote. They are not people who are involved in fraud. They are people who for one reason or another do not have ID. The vouching system that she and her party are now supporting will be impossible to engineer. I can tell her the reality is that people will be disenfranchised and not allowed to vote.

If the Bloc is very concerned about voter fraud in Quebec, then why would the Bloc members not come forward with a simple idea such as the one the member for Ottawa Centre made? Voter cards should be put in envelopes instead of being mailed and sent to buildings where they can be picked up. The most simple thing to do would be to put them in envelopes and put the voter's name on the front. That would probably eliminate potential fraud more than anything else.

I am really mystified as to why the Bloc is supporting this bill and not recognizing the real impact it is going to have on individual voters who often do not get heard. These are people who usually do not have a voice, so when they vote it is really important.

I am very disappointed that the Bloc is ignoring people who are marginalized and is basically creating a system that will make it impossible for those people to vote. How does the member explain that?

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the NDP for her comments. I will answer her questions.

The NDP claims that disclosing the date of birth of voters infringes on privacy rights. We in the Bloc Québécois regard the date of birth as an important tool allowing political parties to control the identity of voters who want to exercise their franchise, especially if a would-be voter shows up at a polling station without the required ID. With respect to the NDP's concerns about privacy, the Bloc Québécois suggests that, in Quebec, political parties have access to such information, and democracy in Quebec is no worse off. Consequently, the Bloc Québécois opposes Motion No. 2. The NDP thinks that this provision might restrict the ability to vote of those who do not have ID or forgot their ID at home on voting day. The Bloc Québécois thinks that it is necessary, in order to prevent fraud, that ID be required. Sufficient amendments have been made to the bill to enable sensitive groups such as aboriginal people to exercise their franchise. Note that a homeless person who does not have ID could still vote provided a qualified elector was able to vouch for them. Earlier, the parliamentary secretary described to our colleague from the NDP what was added to the Canada Elections Act for those who may not be able to get ID.

Regarding Motion No. 4, clause 22 provides that, in the event that a name is crossed off in error from the list of electors, the elector in question may vote, provided that the elector takes an oath and that the returning officer verifies that there was indeed an error made. Bill C-31 added to these two requirements the need for electors to identify themselves with ID. The NDP amendment proposes to remove the latter requirement. The Bloc Québécois thinks that it is necessary, in order to prevent fraud, that ID be required.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the bill. It is a very important bill and unfortunately it has not had a lot of attention. If the bill goes through unchanged, it will have a substantial impact on the voting rights of many low income people in Canada, and certainly in my own riding of Vancouver East, which includes the downtown east side.

I would like to begin by laying out the alleged problem we are dealing with. We are told that there is voter fraud and therefore these very significant changes need to be made to the Canada Elections Act to prevent fraud. Yet at committee when the debate first started, I actually asked the Chief Electoral Officer if he felt that there were huge instances of fraud. He basically said that there were a few isolated incidents, but no political party had brought to his attention any systemic things going on, and as far as he was concerned it was not a big issue. I was very curious about that because that was the Chief Electoral Officer who was speaking.

It has been very mystifying and in fact disappointing, as I said earlier, to know that three parties, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc, are in bed together here to change the Canada Elections Act to deal with an alleged problem. It is like applying a sledgehammer to a fly. The consequences of the bill will have a disastrous impact.

We have heard the parties that are supporting the bill claim that they have put provisions in the bill to ensure that homeless people vote and that there can still be a vouching for somebody. However, if we actually look at what the bill contains, we see that it creates a myriad of bureaucratic procedures which I can guarantee will result in many, many people being disenfranchised.

As it is now, if a person is homeless, on the street, if he or she does not have ID, the person can get a statutory declaration from a lawyer. There can be someone in the community who vouches for people, someone who really does know all kinds of individuals because that person may work at a place like the Carnegie Centre in my riding and can say, “Yes, I know who that person is. Yes, they are who they say they are”. The individual gets the statutory declaration and that individual can vote.

The way it will work now is that somebody can only vouch for one person if they are in the same poll and if that person is on the voters list. It will be like two needles trying to find each other in a haystack. It will create absolute chaos.

I am deeply concerned that the bill is going through with so little attention, other than from the NDP. I want to thank the member for Ottawa Centre who did an incredible job on the committee of pointing out every single clause that was a failure and was basically denying people's rights. Other than the NDP and some of the witnesses who came forward to point out the problems, the bill will apparently sail through.

I want to give one example. In the 2000 election I felt very honoured to accompany Sereena Abotsway to the poll. She voted under the statutory declaration. It was the first time she had ever voted and she voted with a sense of hope. She was becoming more aware of the political system. Because we had a system in place of lawyers who were there to assist, she felt she had the confidence, the reason and the hope to vote. This young woman unfortunately is one of the six murdered women who are now part of the missing women trial that is taking place in Vancouver. It just wrenches my gut to know that there are so many people out there who are so marginalized and disenfranchised by the system that we create on the basis that we are making it all neat and tidy and that it is all about dealing with fraud.

We hear theoretically from the Liberals, the member for Vancouver Quadra who said, “Oh, yes, I believe in fairness. It is about fairness”. The way the system will work will be incredibly unfair. Even in the memory of Sereena Abotsway, to think about her and what happened to her and what happens to other people, I feel terrible that the bill will go through and that people will lose the right to vote.

I am very proud of the fact that the NDP caucus is standing up against the bill and saying that the bill is really quite awful and will deny people the right to vote.

I want to thank some of the lawyers who came forward at the committee and appeared on video conference: Jim Quail, executive director for the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre; Tina-Marie Bradford, a lawyer with the B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union; and Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

They are knowledgeable people who came forward and told the committee in detail what the system is like now, what works, what does not, and what the impact of these changes will be. They were basically ignored, other than by our member on the committee, the member for Ottawa Centre, who valiantly put forward amendments to try to mitigate the damage in the bill.

These are the lawyers who actually know what this system is about. They are not dealing with it at a theoretical level. They are dealing with it on the ground. Their advice and expertise were basically ignored and turned down. I feel that this is very unfortunate.

I heard the government House leader say that he is in favour of having a system that is as open as possible to maintain the franchise. I heard him say that the Chief Electoral Officer has said that there will be more aggressive enumeration. None of those things are actually going to assist in terms of what takes place in ensuring that a statutory declaration on its own is available and that there can be a proper vouching system to allow it to work.

I feel that the claims being made by the government in pretending that the bill will ensure that people who are at risk still have the right to vote are completely false. Even to say that there will be enumeration in homeless shelters and that the government will make sure it happens, it sounds good on paper, but we know that most people who are in homeless shelters have to leave during the day.

That is the way these places work. In many places, one part of the rules is that the homeless have to leave early in the morning and not go back until late at night, so exactly where are the enumerators going to find people in homeless shelters?

I feel that the rationale being given by the government House leader on this bill is very superficial. Again, the government should have paid attention to the people who really know how the system works in the local community and at each individual poll and polling district and what it is that the bill would do.

I believe that if we were truly addressing the inconsistencies and problems in our electoral system we would be calling for universal enumeration. Again, this is something that was ignored by the government. It is being ignored by the other political parties.

I do not know about other members, but I remember the day when we could go down the street and actually see the voters list on the telephone poles. We could see whether or not we were on the voters list. We actually had an enumerator who went door to door and asked if people in the enumerated household were eligible to vote.

It was a system that worked, but now we have the high tech, centralized system. There is absolutely no question about it, because the evidence is there: as a result of that new system, many people have been left on the margins and their ability to access the system and to get on the voters list has been seriously undermined. That is a reality of what has taken place over the last decade.

Now the government adds insult to injury by taking away the one provision that was left to ensure that someone who was in a very vulnerable situation and did not have the right ID could at least still get to the poll. That would now be taken away with the bill if these particular amendments are not supported.

In closing, I do not think that this is a good day for the House of Commons. We are meant to be here to represent the public interest. The right to vote of all people, whether wealthy or poor, homeless or living in a fancy house, is being seriously undermined by the bill, so it will be a very bad day in the House of Commons if the bill goes through.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the complaints that the member for Vancouver East has been raising tend to revolve around the issue of homeless people and their ability to participate and the danger that they will be left off the voters list and will not be able to cast their ballots. They are valid things to be concerned about. I think it is not valid to say, as she is saying, that these things have not been taken into account in the bill, in the work the committee did on the bill, in the questions we asked the Chief Electoral Officer, in the responses he gave us, and in the way we incorporated his responses in the amendments to the bill.

I will point this out again and ask her why she thinks this does not work. The law is now amended. I invite the member to look at subclause 16(1) of the bill, which states that an elector or any other elector living at the residence of that particular person, for example, at a homeless shelter, can vouch for the person and get him or her on the voters roll. Not only that, but they can be vouched for at the poll. They cannot vouch for many people, but it does not mean that many people cannot vouch for other people on that list.

The member says that people have to go to the homeless shelter during the day. That is a good point, but we have a number of ways of dealing with it. They could be enumerated when they are back at the shelter by adjusting the enumerator's hours. Enumerators frequently work in the evening for this reason anyway, so it would be easy to accomplish this goal. It could be dealt with by other means. There is a wide variety of ways this could be dealt with.

What I cannot understand is why she thinks that with this provision--and this provision was put in specifically after the Chief Electoral Officer was asked how to deal with this kind of problem--this seriously fails to achieve the goals that she is outlining.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that it fails to achieve the goal of allowing people in that situation to vote because of the evidence and testimony that was heard at the committee. The member also heard it. I think knows very clearly that the system his government has devised for this bill will create complexities in saying that only one person who is in the same poll and already on the list can vouch for only one person. It is going to create a bureaucratic quagmire of trying to get all kinds of individuals to vouch for only one person. It will be almost impossible to do.

If we look at it on paper, maybe it makes sense to the member. Maybe he thinks it will work, but I can tell him that lawyers who have been involved in this system, particularly in using statutory declarations, have told us that it will be a nightmare and that it will basically disenfranchise people.

The people we are talking about are not committing fraud. That is what is so terrible about this bill. It is aiming at the people who are not committing fraud whatsoever, but their right is being removed.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for her tireless devotion to the people who have been disenfranchised and I would like to ask her a question.

In light of this whole focus that this is somehow part of electoral reform, when we have seen no movement in the House on serious matters of electoral reform in terms of establishing a proper proportional representation system, and given the abysmal record of voting in our country, the alienation that people feel in this country toward voting and the cynicism they have toward the House, does she think that perhaps our electoral reform representative from the government party might have put his efforts into something a little more substantive that would have actually shown some more results and that would have enfranchised a lot more people who right now just turn off their televisions every time they hear a politician speak?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay is right on. We are spending all of this time on this bill that will affect people in a negative way and we are completely missing the bigger picture in terms of the real democratic reform that needs to take place in this country and which the NDP has championed for a very long time in terms of ensuring that there is electoral reform through proportional representation, for example, so that people's votes really do count.

I talk to voters who usually do not vote and are cynical and turned off. When some of them do vote, I feel really proud. It does not matter to me who they vote for. I just feel proud that they took the time to vote. It really means something when one sees the kind of cynicism that exists. This bill is going to undermine and limit the availability and capacity of those people to vote while completely ignoring the larger question of democratic electoral reform.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, The Forestry Industry.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the House today on Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.

On June 22, 2006, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs tabled a report in the House that was entitled “Improving the Integrity of the Electoral Process: Recommendations for Legislative Change”. The report was based in part on the recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer.

While it has already been referenced and there continue to be ongoing discussions and debate about fundamental changes to our electoral system, these should not detract from the efforts that should be made to improve the existing system.

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or for error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government issued photo identification that shows their name and address, or two pieces of identification, authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer, which show their name and address. Or they can take an oath, or be vouched for by another elector.

It also amends the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the national registry of electors. It facilitates voting and enhances communications with the electorate. It goes on to amend the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations to extend the maximum term of employment of casual workers. This works both for the system and for the individual workers.

All of us in this House have gone through the electoral system at least once. Many of us have gone through it several times. On election day, we put our faith in the hands of our electorate. However, collectively as Canadians, voters and candidates, we also depend on the integrity of the electoral system to reduce the opportunity for electoral fraud and to ensure secure, fair and accessible voting on voting day. It is my hope that the initiatives contained in this legislation will enhance this process for Canadians.

A key concern for the Liberal committee members is ensuring that the bill allows for aboriginal status identification to be acceptable as proof for voting purposes. Government officials have clarified that the text of the bill requires either, number one, government issued photo ID with an address, or number two, government issued photo ID without an address, including band status cards, accompanied by a letter from the band council or by a phone or utility bill that shows the resident's name and actual address.

A second concern for the Liberal committee members is ensuring that the enumeration process is strengthened in reserve communities. The government has suggested that, rather than send the bill to committee, the committee simply pass a motion calling on the Chief Electoral Officer to strengthen enumeration in reserve communities and in other areas of low enumeration.

It is difficult to strike the balance that ensures the integrity of the system without becoming overly onerous on the citizen and denying him or her the right to vote. It is a privilege to cast a ballot. I appreciate the fact that voters do not have acceptable ID. I also know that all of us in this House can dedicate ourselves entirely to the activity of election day. As a matter of fact, many of us spend every waking moment and several weeks campaigning.

However, the vast majority of Canadian voters have busy lives that involve hectic, challenging schedules. Even though voter turnout improved in the 2006 federal election, it continues to be alarmingly low. It is important that Canadians can go to their local polling station knowing what information is expected of them in being able to exercise their democratic right. It is our expectation that a uniform procedure for voter identification at the polls will provide clear and consistent information and a system that reinforces the importance of exercising one's right to vote.

We on this side of the House also support the strengthening of the enumeration process, particularly, again, in reserve communities and in other areas of low enumeration.

Further, parts of the proposed legislation also address accessibility issues as some voters with disabilities will no longer required to request a transfer to a polling station with level access three days in advance. As well, the proposed legislation opens up accessibility to advanced polls. These are positive improvements for people with mobility limitations.

On this side of the House, we support the changes to the Canada Elections Act that protect against the likelihood of voter fraud and misrepresentation. We need to ensure that aboriginal photo identification is an acceptable form of voter identification. It is our understanding that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, makes the operational improvements that are necessary and will advance the integrity of our voting system.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and thank the hon. member for Kitchener Centre who worked very hard on committee. She had some great input and many of her suggestions actually wound up in the bill. The hon. member for the NDP spoke about a number of witnesses, and the member was at committee when they spoke.

I want to pose a question and make a comment or two.

One of the witnesses described the issue of statutory declaration and the process whereby tables would be set up in various areas and people would declare who they were. I am sure the member will recall one a question that was posed to a witness about how someone would know the individual was exactly who he or she said. The response was that sometimes they asked them to check their pockets. Sometimes parking stubs or perhaps prescription bottles were found in their pockets. This would help firm up who they were.

One of the witnesses prior to that suggested these folks were often robbed, which is a terrible thing, but ultimately suggested that whatever was in their pockets was not there very long. The question was posed that if this was the case, then the first thing that would get stolen would be prescriptions. The statutory declaration issue became a little less reliable, given the way these folks were identified was in itself completely unreliable.

The member understood this issue very well and she made some great comments at committee. Could she perhaps confirm that although statutory declarations have a role, they certainly have a lot of holes in them?

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his kind comments and for his insight in how we grappled with this. Every member on committee really grappled with the kind of balance that we needed to have.

My recollection is very similar to that of the member for Cambridge as we talked about the identification of the population, which the NDP has very eloquently defended. I do not believe there is any intention to disenfranchise any voter who wants to vote in an election.

There are out of the cold programs in my own riding of Kitchener Centre. There are homeless shelters. The people who work at these establishments know their clientele very well. One of the things that I found most shocking, when we were in government, was how we addressed homelessness. A great number of homeless people actually go out to work every day. They may have underemployment issues. They may have minimum employment. They are known people who are carrying on with their lives but do not have money for shelter. These kinds of people will be known at the House of Friendship. They will be known at the out of the cold programs that are run by churches like St. Andrew's in downtown Kitchener. Individuals will be able to vouch for these people.

We have to be very cognizant of keeping that proper balance, but I would agree that these are positive changes. We do not support the amendments that the NDP has brought forward. We feel they take out a very important aspect of the improvement.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was on the committee, and I want to pose a question about the issue of birth dates. It is not something she brought up in her comments, so I would like to have her take on it.

In committee I had deep concerns about the fact that not only would the government have access to this private information, which it does from time to time, but political parties would have access to it as well. The Bloc put this forward as a motion and the Liberals supported it. Now the government is supporting it too, under the auspices of goodwill.

I do not understand the need for parliamentarians to have that private information. We have seen recently the concerns consumers have about private information being out there. There will be 308 ridings, with goodness knows how many political parties, all having the birth date information of all electors. We already have problems with our system mixing things up. We just need to ask people who thought they were Canadian citizens.

What is the rationale for this and why would my colleague support such an amendment?

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns. I do however take very seriously the kind of testimony that we heard from colleagues from Quebec where that is just a matter of public record. They have not seen any problem with it. It is a matter of public information. They are published.

I think it facilitates with scrutineering at polls. Again, it is something we will monitor to see if there are abuses. I know the member is not casting any aspersions on anyone who would be employed by Elections Canada because we have people who do amazing work to ensure we have a system that is envied around the world.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31. There are a number of concerns that we face on the front lines in my riding to which I would like to speak.

At the outset, I find it very interesting that in terms of electoral reform issues, this is the one issue that has been brought before the House. We are talking about the threat of fraud, yet we see very little evidence of actual fraud having occurred.

In 2006 there was one case of fraud in the entire country. In 2004 there were zero cases. In 2000 there were three cases. That is four out of the millions of people who voted in elections in the country. Yet we have a need for all parliamentarians to stand up and deal with this threat.

I raise the question that perhaps it is guilty minds. We have only to look at the leadership races of parties in the House, where questions of conduct have been much more egregious than what we see in people who try to exercise their democratic franchise. Certainly no one would suggest average citizens would be out patting down cadavers to see if they had party memberships to vote for the leadership, as happened to some very august members of the House. What are we thinking to impose on the honest law-abiding citizens of our country?

I suggest the bigger issue is disenfranchisement and cynicism about the electoral process. We need to be looking at that. There are number of problems that have to be addressed. I would have expected that they would have been addressed in a bill brought forward by the new government.

For example, on the need for electoral reform, people have been calling out for it. People are tuning out of the electoral process. They are tired of our old system and they feel that more voices have to be heard. Yet the two main parties certainly have no real interest in seeing this go forward, so this is not coming forward as a priority.

The other question is on how the actual electoral voting system works now that we do not have a proper voting list.

In the 2004 election people in my riding who went to vote were told that they were on a voter's list 40 kilometres away. I know people in the southern end of my riding were told they did not belong in their own riding because their mailbox was in the municipality. Elections Canada had actually run a line through the bottom of my riding so people who lived in my riding were told they had to vote in another riding.

These are problems. People get fed up when they try to vote. They go home and they say they are not going to vote. That is a serious threat to democracy. I would have thought that issue would have been brought forward with some sense of urgency, but no.

What we are dealing with is the potential that somewhere down the road Canadians are going to commit fraud in voting. Why would anyone go out of their way to defraud just to try to vote, when we are begging and encouraging people to come out? However, that is a larger philosophical question.

I would like to focus on a few areas that are very important in my region. I have very large isolated first nation communities. When we talk about getting a photo ID card, that makes sense, if we believe that every Canadian has a right to a photo ID card. However, on the James Bay coast up to 30% of our population is not eligible for health care status because the province of Ontario does not bother to go and deal with the Cree communities. It has fallen to my office and my provincial counterpart, Gilles Bisson. We go there and fill out these cards.

The interesting thing about this is how do they get a photograph on the ID when the provincial government is leaving it up to a federal member of Parliament and a provincial member of the legislature to fill out the forms for citizens? Guess what. The Ontario government has a special loophole. It does not bother giving a photograph, if one lives on the James Bay coast. It will simply fill out the form and send it there with a trillium logo.

It is amazing. I have thousands of wonderful looking Cree families and all their faces look like a trillium logo because the province of Ontario does not even both to ensure that these people have photo ID. This is something they are expected to have if they are going to be able to vote.

There is the issue of having an address. I invite anybody to go into Fort Albany and ask people their addresses. People do not have street addresses that they go by. We find that in all our communities. We have many of our communities where they simply do not have even the most basic registration.

In fact, if we are talking about administering an oath, I would like to see electoral officers come up and do the oath in Cree or Ojicree. Many elders, for example, do not speak English. Many elders have not birth certificates, but we are trying to get them.

There is the issue of these community members being unfairly penalized because somebody somewhere might some day decide to defraud the system. I find it is an outrageous thought. Imagine people in Attawapiskat going to the poll and claiming to be someone different when everybody knows who they are. I think they would get run out of town fairly quickly.

Unless the members of Parliament think I am making light of these issues, I would like to quote some of the testimony that was brought before the committee from Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, which represents the 70 communities across the northern Treaty 9 area, an area I represent.

It stated:

We are also concerned that these amendments to the act could affect our elders. Most of these people do not have birth certificates; few of them have a driver's licence. Leaving their communities to acquire photo identification is a severe hardship and in some instances it will be neither feasible nor affordable.

—we suggest that the proposed amendments have failed to take into consideration the realities of the people in our remote communities. They are based on the assumption that the majority of Canadian electors live in urban centres. Until government services are made available in an equitable manner to our people living in remote communities and the amendments to the act reflect the realities of the lives of our people....I suggest that the committee, if possible, visit some of our communities to better understand the challenges we face in our role as Canadian citizens.

This is the message I hear from the leadership in Nishnawbe-Aski Nation and the Mishkeegogamang tribal areas, and it is a message I want to bring to Parliament. Our people on the James Bay coast are not committing fraud. The biggest issue we have is encouraging them to see themselves as participants in the electoral system. That has been a hard sell. We need to ensure that more and more Canadians are entitled and encouraged to vote and are made to feel that voting is something worthwhile.

I will go back to the original point that I started to make.

We have put this forward as the only bill so far of electoral reform in this Parliament, and it is to deal with fraud. We have had almost zero cases of fraud in the electoral system. Yet we know this bill would disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands, across Canada. For the one person convicted of fraud in 2006, for the zero persons in 2004, for the three convicted in 2000, what we are setting out to do is to go after many people on the margins who right now we should be trying to encourage to vote.

I will conclude with this whole question of allowing political parties access to birth dates. Some people might say this is a minor issue, it is a way of ensuring fairness. I do not impugn any political parties here or any political regions in the country, but I suggest that is in there for the crassest political opportunism. The idea of outreach in certain parties is to get people's birth date and then phone them on their birthday and say, “Hi, it's Bob, your MP, phoning you on your birthday”, and that is supposed to suffice.

In fact, I first heard about this trick from a MLA from Quebec who said, “You know, this is the one thing I do all year, I make sure I phone everybody on their birthday, and they love it. And you know what? I don`t have to do much else”.

What we are saying is, in the interest of going after the fraudsters, we have to ensure that every political party can ensure that they can phone constituents on their birthdays just to secure their vote. That is the reason we are talking about this today.

Let us be honest. I know it is a sin as a politician, and I have to admit it, to give away trade secrets to the general public so they know how politicians really act. However, I feel incumbent at this moment to stand up and speak. The reason we want their birth date information is so we can hit them up on their birthday and secure a vote. I think that is fairly cynical, just as I feel a lot about this bill.

I would encourage the members to consider the bigger issue, which is that we need to find ways for people to have confidence in the democratic system and to feel as if they can become involved. I am concerned that what we are going after is a chimera because we have not seen the evidence of fraud to back up the need for this. If there were large areas, I would consider it, but at this point I cannot see further disenfranchising the communities in my riding, such as Ogoki, Kashechewan, Attawapiskat, Peawanuck, Moosonee and Moose Factory. I cannot see people from those communities, who have already been marginalized enough, feeling that they need to do anything more than to show up and say that they are citizens of this country.

As it says in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein, end of story. There are no qualifications. It does not say anything about bringing ID. It does not say anything about people having to give out their birth date information. They have that right.